


where the spent lights quiver and gleam

by Ias



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Elements of Horror, Hand Feeding, Javert's Confused Boner, M/M, Sexual Frustration, Sirens, finally my chance to use that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 14:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19401835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: On a calm sea, Javert drifts.





	where the spent lights quiver and gleam

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ceiling of Amber, Pavement of Pearl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18876409) by [TheLifeOfEmm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeOfEmm/pseuds/TheLifeOfEmm). 



> This was written as a companion to Emm's magnificent siren au, because I just couldn't help myself. Thanks for letting me play around in your AU, friend.

It is quiet, in the brig. No sounds but the creak of timber, the gentle slap of water against the sides of the tank with each of the ship’s gentle rolls. It is also dark--terribly dark. In truth Javert cannot account for that; for how and why he came to be here, at night, kneeling by the light of a single candle on the table nearby, in an attitude like that of prayer. 

He is not praying, though his hand moves with the trancelike repetition of praying the rosary. One hand holds a simple tin plate, the same battered service the men dine off of in the mess hall. Chunks of tuna, as red as rubies, sit upon the dull metal like jewels. The other hand brings these, one by one, to the siren’s unbound mouth.

Javert watches this as if he is a spectator within himself. He feels only a sense of profound quietude; and beneath that, something building like a wave. The siren reclines in the tank, its hands still bound. Only now it is wholly relaxed, the wrists slack, the planes of its chest softened in repose, its eyes lazy and half-lidded. Javert is no longer the jailer ensuring his captive does not perish of hunger. Instead could be some courtly attendant, hand-feeding an indolent lord. 

The thought ought to disgust him. Still his hand moves, moves as if acting on a will not his own. He is no longer wearing his gloves. 

“That’s good,” the siren says, and the very sound of its voice is the peal of a church bell in the deepest watches of his soul, the tongue of the bell throbbing against the inside of his ribs; and he is metal reverberating to life. He does not know whether the siren speaks of the food or of his actions. He does not care. 

He raises the next piece of fish, feels the brush of the siren’s lips against his fingertips: only they are not chapped and rough this time. They are damp and they are soft, and there is no hesitation between them with each passing morsel; Javert holds it out, and Valjean bows his head to take it, his lips closing entirely around Javert’s fingers from the final knuckle down, a wet warm slide down to the tips of his fingers before finally, mercifully releasing him. Valjean’s eyes, as blue as the sky seen from the drowning depths of the sea, meet his. They are warm and welcoming. 

“Aren’t you hungry?” he says, and leans forward to take the plate--for his hands are unbound, now. A shiver of alarm moves through him, but the brush of fingers against his own soothes him. A morsel is raised to his mouth, and he takes it willingly; it is red and juicy and taste as salty as the ocean. Valjean’s fingers linger at his mouth. His body feels so heavy. His clothes weigh him down. 

This is wrong, terribly wrong in a way that Javert can only grasp at. And yet not once in his life has he felt this sense of peace; not once has he permitted himself such a glorious indulgence. Valjean feeds him another, and he sucks the juices from each finger while the siren watches, admiring, pushing those fingers against his tongue. 

There is nothing, nothing at all past the flickering circle of candlelight. They hang suspended in a void. Even the creaking of the ship has ceased; he cannot even feel the roll and plunge of its movements. That more than anything rekindles his alarm, for a sailor there is nothing stranger than stillness. 

They are aground, he realizes, distant, matter-of-fact. They have wrecked. He looks down and sees his coat is soaked through; the water is up to his chest, and creeping higher.

Valjean watches him, the water lapping at his collarbones, his expression softly triumphant where the light glints in his eyes. There is no tank. No chains. The water is still and dark. Now Javert is beginning to feel afraid, for the light is growing dimmer and dimmer, and the water is so close and so warm. 

Still Valjean holds the plate aloft. “There’s no shame in this,” he says, and again his words trawl through Javert’s deepest places, stir silt which has long lain dormant. The siren shifts closer, movements far too smooth to be human in the rising water. Something brushes Javert’s leg, coils and slides against it like a living shackle. The water has reached their shoulders. Another morsel is held to Javert’s lips.

“Eat,” he says, and Javert opens to it. It bursts on his tongue, rich, salty--bloody. For it is not saltwater which he tastes now, and the plate in the siren’s hand is dripping with red. Moments before the light fades at last he sees the dark scraps of cloth that lie among the meat, the glint of a button, the curve of a fingernail. And he knows at once why the ship is silent; he knows why he is alone. 

The water surges around him, hot as blood. The pressure snaked around his calves moves upward. He succumbs. There is nothing else to do. Moments before the light winks out Valjean presses his mouth to Javert’s; and it is dark, the water is over his head, the siren moves against him and a tongue parts his lips. He is lost, the heat surges inside of him, he cannot breathe, he does not wish to--

In the siren’s embrace, he drowns. 

* * *

Javert awakens with a grunt, one hand flailing blindly for his pistol, for a light, for any solid object to anchor him to the world. For a moment he is still beneath the water. The darkness of his room is of the same crushing quality, and the rough sheets wrap around his legs.

Heart pounding, he takes stock: he is in his bunk. The ship rocks and tosses with the motions of a calm sea, the footsteps of the watch a familiar thud passing the boards above his head. He is drenched in sweat as if he has been pulled from the ocean; his breath comes in short pants he cannot seem to deepen. And no matter how he might wish to ignore it, he is also achingly, humiliatingly erect. 

He stares at the ceiling of his bunk, a blank canvas for the night. He is furious. He is disgusted. He wants--he needs to--he has not disgraced himself, in his sleep, to dreams of betraying his men in the arms of a monster, but it is a near thing. His body strains, so sensitive that merely shifting his position puts him in danger. It would be the work of only a moment to complete his shame. It would almost be better to finish it. He has never been a man to do anything halfway. 

His hand lies flat on his stomach. Slowly it clenches into a fist. And so he remains, as the minutes tick by, until at last the sweet thrum in his body has soured and he can safely roll onto his side, sore and wrung-out and unsatisfied, and wait for the dawn to burn him clean. 


End file.
